Zipscreen blind
A technical fabric held in rails over its full height. That is where both the name and the wind resistance come from.
The Zipscreen blind is an external screen with ZIP guidance: a vertical blind in technical fabric, fitted outside the joinery, which comes down from a headbox at the top and rolls back up onto a motorised barrel. What sets it apart from an ordinary blind is precisely the ZIP guidance: a zip-shaped profile is welded along the edges of the fabric, which runs into two side rails and does not come out of them, however far the fabric is lowered.
An external blind without ZIP has free edges. At the first gust the wind catches them, the fabric flaps, comes out of its guide and is damaged. With a ZIP system the wind pressure is distributed across the whole tensioned surface, because there is no free edge for the wind to lift.
Comparison
Zipscreen blind, external roller shutter or Raffstore
All three systems are fitted in the same place, outside, in front of the glass, but they solve different problems. The wrong choice shows in use, not at installation.
Zipscreen blind
A perforated technical fabric, ZIP guided. It stops the radiation and keeps the view out and the daylight. It does not darken and does not insulate in winter. The surface stays flat and still, even in wind.
External roller shutter
Rigid aluminium slats that come down as a solid curtain. It darkens well, adds an extra barrier in winter and a degree of security, but it has only one useful state: lowered, the room is dark.
Raffstore
Tilting aluminium slats. The only solution that can be adjusted in stages and lets the sun in in winter. Mechanically more complex and more sensitive to wind than a well-guided Zipscreen blind.
How to choose between them
If view and daylight are wanted, the ZIP screen. If darkness and security are wanted, the roller shutter. If fine control of the sun throughout the year is wanted, the external venetian blind.
The fabric
What you are actually choosing on a screen
The mechanics are almost the same on every blind of this type. The difference in behaviour — how much you can see out, how much sun it stops, how closed the façade looks — comes almost entirely from the fabric.
What it is made of
The usual fabric on external blinds has a yarn with a glass-fibre core, coated in PVC. The core gives it dimensional stability — it neither stretches nor shrinks with the weather — and the coating gives it resistance to moisture and to ultraviolet radiation.
The openness factor
It is the proportion of open area in the fabric, as a percentage. The lower it is, the smaller the apertures: less light and less heat get through, but it is harder to see out. The higher it is, the clearer the view and the weaker the protection.
What is visible, and from which side
By day, with more light outside than in, you can see out but not in. In the evening, with the lights on indoors, the relationship reverses — an open fabric is no substitute for a curtain after dark.
The colour counts twice over
A dark fabric gives the best view out and reduces reflections, but it heats up more. A light one reflects the radiation better, but it blurs the view and can produce glare.
The solar factor of the assembly
Solar control performance does not belong to the fabric alone but to the fabric-plus-glass combination. It is expressed as a total solar factor and calculated on the pair actually used, not taken from a general table.
Special versions
There are also unperforated fabrics, for almost complete darkness, and fabrics with a metallised outer face, for greater reflectance. They are chosen when there is a specific requirement, not as a default.
Make-up
The construction types
A Zipscreen blind has four parts that matter: the headbox at the top, the two side rails, the bottom bar and the motor. How they are built decides how the system looks on the building.
Closed headbox
The rolled-up fabric is completely covered by an aluminium profile. It is the version for exposed positions: it protects the fabric and the mechanism from rain, dust and radiation when the system is not in use.
Half headbox
The headbox covers the shutter only partly. Less bulky and more discreet, suited to mounting under an eaves overhang or in a sheltered position, where the rolled-up curtain is not fully exposed to the weather.
Recessed installation
The headbox is allowed for within the external insulation or in a void left in the masonry and stays invisible on the façade. It is decided at design stage: it cannot be added later without taking the finish apart.
The side rails
Aluminium profiles that the zip on the fabric runs in. Their width and shape are chosen by the size of the opening and by exposure — they are what actually takes the wind load.
The bottom bar
The bottom profile that tensions the fabric vertically. On pergolas and terrace enclosures it can also take a seal onto the floor.
Terrace enclosures and pergolas
The same system is used vertically, on the sides of a pergola or a terrace, to stop wind and low sun. It is the application where the ZIP matters most, because the areas are large and unsheltered.
Operation
Motorisation and automation
The Zipscreen blind is supplied motorised virtually without exception: the fabric has to be tensioned evenly, and at large widths manual operation becomes imprecise.
Tubular motor
The motor sits inside the barrel the fabric winds onto, in the headbox. Nothing shows on the façade and there is no crank handle or chain.
Control
From a wall switch, by radio remote or from an app, depending on the type of motor chosen. The type of control is settled together with the motor, not after installation.
Sun sensor
It lowers the fabric automatically when the radiation passes a threshold. On south and west façades it is the difference between a system that actually reduces overheating and one that stays rolled up all day.
Wind sensor
It retracts the fabric above a wind-speed threshold. Even though ZIP guidance withstands far more than a free-hanging blind, it too has a declared limit, and the sensor is how that limit is respected.
Integration with home automation
The usual blind motors integrate into home automation systems. The ecosystem — including compatibility with a particular platform — is given by the motor chosen, so it is settled at order stage, not assumed.
The power supply
Every screen needs power at the headbox. The runs are allowed for along with the electrical installation; adding them later means work on the finishes.
Before ordering
What we decide together
What comes first
View and light, or darkness? The answer decides the openness factor and, with it, everything else. It is the first question, not the last.
The size of the opening
The width and height decide the type of rail, the thickness of the bottom bar and the power of the motor. Beyond certain sizes an opening is split into two bays.
Exposure
The floor level, the orientation and how open the surrounding area is decide whether the system will stand up in that position. A screen at ground level between buildings and one on the eighth floor facing open country are not the same product.
When it is integrated
A recessed headbox and the electrical runs are allowed for at design stage. Surface mounting remains possible at any time, but it shows on the façade.
The finish of the profiles
The headbox, the rails and the bottom bar are powder coated, in the same range as the aluminium joinery.
Maintenance
The fabric is cleaned with water and a neutral detergent. It is rolled up dry; rolled up wet and left that way for a long time, it ages faster.
Make-up
What keeps the fabric taut
What sets it apart from an ordinary fabric blind is the zip at the sides: the edge of the fabric runs into a rail and stays held over the whole travel. That is where both the wind resistance and the absence of flapping come from.
Extruded aluminium headbox
It houses the barrel and the rolled-up fabric. The headbox and guide rail profiles and the end caps are in coated extruded aluminium.
ZIP guide rails
The fabric has a profile along its edge that runs in the rail, like a zip. It does not come out of the rail in wind and leaves no side gaps for light to pass through.
Bottom bar
The bottom profile, which tensions the fabric and closes the opening at the foot.
Technical fabric
Five families of fabric, each with its own colour range. They are chosen by how much has to be visible through them and by the orientation of the façade.
Where it is fitted
On windows, on terraces and balconies, on verandas and loggias, and on pergolas as a side enclosure.
What it does when lowered
The supplier declares that the system stops up to 90% of unwanted heat gain when lowered, without darkening the room completely.
Colours and materials
The structure and the fabric, two separate choices
The structure is coated aluminium; the fabric is a technical textile, with a colour range of its own. The two palettes do not overlap: a headbox colour does not mean the same colour exists in the fabric.
The structure — headbox, guide rails, bottom bar
Extruded aluminium profiles. The supplier currently supplies the shades below.
- Anthracite greyRAL 7016
- Dark brownRAL 8014
- BlackRAL 9005
These are the shades the supplier lists as standard for the structure. The rest of the RAL palette is produced to order.
Fabrics
Each fabric family has its own colour range. The number of shades is the one the supplier declares for the TARA PREMIO II system.
| Fabric | Shades available |
|---|---|
| Soltis Horizon 86 | 7 |
| Soltis Perform 92 | 9 |
| Soltis Opaque B92 | 4 |
| Sergé 3% | 14 |
| Sergé XINIX | 3 |
The names are those of the fabric manufacturers. The openness factor, the transparency and the behaviour in light differ from one family to another and are chosen by the orientation of the façade; we do not publish values the supplier does not declare for this system.
Operation and automation
From a crank handle to a scene
The operation is chosen before manufacture: it changes the make-up of the barrel, the electrical runs and, sometimes, the size limits. Below are the versions we fit on this type of product.
Switch control — wired motorisation
Somfy Maestria 50 WT
A wired motor, listed by Suntech for the TARA PREMIO II system.
Somfy LT 50
The second wired version in the Suntech list for the same system.
Radio control — motors with a radio receiver
Somfy Altus 50 RTS
A motor with a built-in RTS receiver, from the Suntech list.
Somfy Maestria+ 50 io and Oximo 40 WF io
The io-homecontrol® versions listed by Suntech for TARA PREMIO II.
The Somfy range for screens
For awnings and external screens, Somfy declares separately Sunea io, Sunea Screen io and Pergola io in io, and Sunea RTS CSI, Altus RTS and Orea RTS in RTS.
A fabric screen is operated by motor. The fabric is tensioned in the rails by the zip at the sides, and the travel has to stop exactly, which calls for end limits set on the system — not an improvised manual drive.
Control technologies
What RTS, io and TaHoma mean
Three levels, in increasing order: a wall switch, a radio remote and a unit that ties everything into a scene. They can be added later, but the motor has to be chosen from the outset for the level wanted.
Wired control
A switch wired directly to the motor. The simplest and the cheapest solution, but it needs an electrical run at every opening and does not centralise easily.
Somfy RTS
One-way radio at 433.42 MHz, with a rolling code and 16 million combinations. The command is transmitted three times, to be sure of arriving. Somfy declares a range of 20 m through two concrete walls or 200 m in the open. The motor carries out the command but does not confirm it.
Somfy io-homecontrol®
Two-way radio: the motor confirms what it has done and reports its position. It scans three frequencies between 868 and 870 MHz and picks the free one, and the communication is encrypted on 128 bits. The same declared range as RTS.
SIMU-Hz and SIMU-BHz
SIMU’s own radio, with the receiver built into the motor or separate. The BHz range also works in the 868–870 MHz band. It is used where the motorisation is SIMU.
Somfy TaHoma
The unit that ties the equipment into a single app: remote control, groups, timed programmes and scenes. Somfy has supplied it since 2008 and declares compatibility with over 280 products, including through the io-homecontrol® partners’ protocols.
Control points
Smoove wall switches, Situo and Telis remotes, Nina io and Nina Timer io screens. Roller shutters are routinely operated from a Smoove or a Situo remote, and io systems can be added to TaHoma.
Sensors — the automation that works on its own
Sun sensor
It lowers the shading when the radiation passes the set threshold and raises it when the radiation falls. Somfy lists Sunis io Wirefree in the io range and Soliris RTS, which combines sun and wind, in the RTS range. SIMU has an external sun sensor in the BHz range.
Wind sensor
It retracts the system before the wind loads it. Somfy lists Eolis RTS, Eolis 3D io and Eolis Wirefree io. It has to be discussed on screens and awnings, where the fabric is the exposed part.
Temperature sensor
Thermis io measures the temperature and can start the shading before the room heats up. It works on the same io network as the rest of the equipment.
The sensors and the control units are chosen to match the motor’s technology: an io sensor does not control an RTS motor, or the other way round. Which is why the technology is settled together with the motor, not after installation.
A professional note
Wind resistance and solar factor are declared per configuration
Zipscreen blinds come under the same product standard as other external blinds, EN 13659, and wind resistance is tested to EN 1932. The class obtained depends on the system, on the type of rail and on the size of the bay: the same system is classified differently at 1.5 m wide and at 4 m.
Likewise, the total solar factor does not belong to the fabric but to the fabric–glass pair. The same fabric in front of an ordinary double unit and in front of a solar control unit give different results.
That is why you will not find wind classes, openness factors or solar factor values here. We settle them at quotation stage, on the actual configuration, and record them in the project documentation, with the data sheets of the manufacturer of the system and of the fabric chosen.
Technical details
The data sheet comes with the system chosen
The maximum dimensions, the declared classes, the profile sections and the drive data belong to the particular system and to the configuration ordered. We settle them at quotation stage and send them to you with the manufacturer’s documentation.
Technical documentation
Do you need the data sheet?
Tell us the dimensions of the openings and the type of installation. We will send you the data sheet for the right system, for the configuration you are interested in.
Applications
Where they are used
- Large windows
- Curtain walls
- Terraces
- Pergolas
- Winter gardens
- Office buildings
- Restaurants and cafés
- Detached homes
Next step
Do you want shading that keeps the view?
Tell us the dimensions of the openings, the orientation and whether the system goes on a façade or on a terrace. We will come back with the right fabric and a quotation.
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